บท 211: 207 Epilogue 7
Colosseum Dimension, April 10th, 20:02.
Standing inside the expansive colosseum, two people can be seen.
On one side, a big, six foot tall, hairy man with long, greasy blond hair, wearing only a simple pair of torn shorts and a wolf-shaped mask covering his whole face, leaving his grizzled chest bare. He has an 'E88' tattoo on one bicep, and a wolf superimposed on a swastika on the other, showing his loyalty to the Empire Eighty-Eight, while also proudly displaying his position as a Nazi and referencing his name, Hookwolf.
Which makes the scene especially interesting, as opposite him is a black woman, standing two inches taller than Hookwolf does, with a head of wild, messy black hair hanging over a mismatched pair of vertically slit eyes, one ice blue, the other steel grey. But while her eyes are clear to see, the lower half of her face is covered by a mask depicting a cheshire grin. Unlike Hookwolf however, she is actually wearing clothes, a sleeveless turtleneck, showing off her lithe, muscular physique, and military pants, all in black.
She also noticeably has long, clawed hands, with similar claws on her feet too, poking through a pair of specially modified boots. And finally, as if the Claws weren't enough to remind people of her name, she has it engraved on the front of the choker around her neck in big, bold words. Kitty.
Around them, the colosseum has been cleared out, leaving a frankly needlessly large space open to them. Out in the stands, there are even a few people sitting, some together and some spaced apart. There aren't a lot of them, but that's understandable.
After all, they are all parahumans.
Normally they wouldn't be able to see much, with how large the colosseum is, but there is a barrier built around the arena that separates it from the stands, both for the safety of the audience and so that said audience can zoom in to get a closer look at the action.
And while No Face is in his own commentator's box doing the introductions, the two participants are both sizing each other up, getting ready with a little bit of pre-fight banter.
"My first fight here and it's with a ni**er chick, I'm disappointed," Hookwolf says, no real racist vitriol to his tone, as no matter his words, he doesn't really care what race you are, just that you can put up a fight.
And he's found that playing against race is a pretty decent way to get people motivated to fight back.
Unfortunately for him, while his words do anger Kitty, they don't do much in the way of pissing her off. Instead, she simply lets out a long whistle, before opening her mouth. "You fuck your mother with that mouth, Fuðflogi?"
Hookwolf, having been just about to make a retort, pauses at the name Kitty calls him, masked face scrunching up in confusion.
"The fuck is a fooflowgi, or whatever the fuck you just said?" He asks, instead of demanding. His small way of showing respect to a fellow fighter.
However, Kitty only answers him by bursting out laughing. She learnt that particular insult specifically in the case she ever met a Nazi, because everyone knows that all Nazis are gay for Norse mythology, and in ancient Scandinavian, calling someone fuðflogi is basically the same as calling them a faggot, except even more insulting.
The fact that he doesn't even get it, just makes it all the more funny. Especially if he later does some research into what it means.
The best insults are the ones that they have to look up to understand, because then it's like you've insulted them twice. Once when you say it, and once when they understand it.
However, banter is cut short as No Face's voice suddenly projects through the colosseum. "Are you ready. To. RUMBLE!?!" A short pause, no doubt to allow spectators to cheer. "FIGHT!!!"
Immediately, Kitty launches herself forward, her body shifting mid-air to transform her into a more aerodynamic form, somewhat similar to that of a crow's, with the too sharp and too long beak poised to pierce straight through Hookwolf's chest.
However, right before she can close the distance, there is the sound or chains clinking and metal scraping, and a veritable font of steel hooks and spikes and other pointy bits flows out of his body, covering him in a thick enough layer that by the time Kitty impacts him, his body is only launched a good distance away, a heavy clang echoing through the arena.
Rebounding back from the strike, Kitty undoes her transformation, returning to her human form and landing on her feet in a crouch as she eagerly watches Hookwolf's metal clad form land on his back, sliding a few feet before stopping, a small trail of dust following him.
Seeing that she is not immediately approaching again, Hookwolf takes a moment to get to his feet, idly rubbing against his chest, even as the mass of metal constantly shifts and scrapes against itself.
"I actually felt that," he compliments, voice distorted slightly by the metal covering his body, only for that metal to abruptly expand, growing his form even larger until he falls forward, landing on all fours as his form starts to take the shape of a giant metal wolf.
And when he speaks again, his voice is even more heavily distorted by the constantly shifting mass of hooks and blades that make up his new body as metal gets generated by his core, pushed out and pulled back in to be recycled for more metal. A constantly shifting mass, always in motion, like a full body chainsaw. "Maybe this won't be so disappointing after all."
However, upon seeing the intimidating, van-sized metal wolf, Kitty's hidden smirk only grows to match the cheshire grin of her mask.
"Doggy, huh? I've always been more of a cat person~." As she speaks, her own body starts transforming, and over the course of only a few seconds, she grows from her normal form to that of a giant, monstrous cat.
With long jagged claws, a thick mane of jet black fur, burning eyes and an open maw full of sharp, deadly looking teeth smiling a cat-like smile at him, Kitty's new form stands just about even with Hookwolf's.
"And would you look at that folks~!" No Face's voice suddenly projects through the arena. "After missing the opening sucker punch, it seems that our two combatants are evenly matched~! Why, it's almost like they both have the same PRT ratings, Brute 7, Changer 4~! Let's see which one comes out on top~!"
Other than feeling mildly annoyed at his ratings getting broadcast, Hookwolf ignores No Face and tunes his words out, focusing instead on the woman opposite him, who has not stopped staring him down since transforming.
Her slit, bicoloured eyes never leave his own, tracking him as he starts circling around her, like a predator watching prey.
It pisses him off, so he stops circling her and just charges forward, reaching her in no time and simply launching himself at her, knowing that he can reduce her to shreds the moment he can get a hold on her.
However, with speed surpassing his own, Kitty bounces to the side, one front claw swinging around at him, cutting a gash into one of hi legs. She purposefully avoided aiming for his centre mass, not because she wants to slow him down by cutting his leg, but simply because she wants to make him hurt.
However, no knowing her opponent comes to bite her, almost literally, as Hookwolf completely ignores the 'wound', more metal pouring out to replace the gash right away, and instead turns on a dime, far faster than he has any right to, and jumping at her once again.
Do to the nature of his 'body', he doesn't have to actually turn around, all he has to do is recycle his body and replace it facing the other way, adding a level of manoeuvrability that few expect of him without knowing ahead of time.
But Kitty's instincts are sharp, and she manages to jump out of the way enough to avoid being mulched, though Hookwolf does manage to return the favour, scoring a long gash against her side, though, Hookwolf doesn't notice the gash start healing right away.
He is too focused on not giving Kitty any time to make distance, pushing his advantage by chasing right after her, yet she surprises him by jumping at him, instead of away from him.
He can only watch as her body flies over his own, flipping forward as it starts shifting in mid-air, transforming into some monstrous, bipedal form with an enormous, spiked hammer-like tail that only builds up in momentum as she continues flipping forward, spinning through several rotations in a few seconds before stopping, slamming her tail into Hookwolf's back with a thunderous crash!
As Hookwolf's body crumples against the ground, cratering it slightly, Kitty transforms again before she can fall to the ground, turning into a crow and flapping her wings once, making some distance before soaring into the air, going up.
By the time Hookwolf is back on his feet, shaking the dizziness from his head, Kitty has already transformed again, turning into an eldritch looking wasp-like creature.
With one massive spike of a stinger, Kitty starts crashing down to the earth like a gigantic, biological pile-driver.
By all accounts, Hookwolf is about to be skewered before he can even realise it, however he has been fighting his entire life. Kitty is not the only one with good instincts.
The moment before impact, Hookwolf lurches forward slightly. When Kitty's stinger hits him, it pierces straight through his body, the screeching sound of tearing metal sounding almost deafening as she digs into his frame.
Unfortunately for her, she missed his core.
Before she can pull out again to make distance, Hookwolf's body shifts and flows; his wolf mouth reforms clamped around Kitty's stinger, and when the rest of his body reforms, he immediately starts charging forward, building up speed even as Kitty's monstrous body flails and bleeds.
Trying to escape the hold, Kitty starts transforming again, shrinking down in size. But that was exactly what Hookwolf was waiting for, and he immediately jumps up, catching the rest of her body mid-transformation, and crashes back into the ground.
Kitty's now human body is pushed against the arena floor hard enough to crack it, and blood splatters in a ring around her as Hookwolf's metal body pushes against her, rending flesh from bone with terrifying efficiency.
Caught as she is, there is nothing she can do as her skin is ripped off, followed by the muscles below; it's only when he starts hitting bone that Hookwolf lets up, stopping his assault and rising.
What is left, is a wolf decorated in the crimson liquid of life, and half a woman lying motionless inside a ring of her own blood, her damaged organs entirely visible, everything from her face down to her feet flayed down to the bone, leaving her eyeless skull bare to the world.
Panting lightly to himself, Hookwolf looks down on the mutilated corpse, and nods his head respectfully, before starting to undo his transformation.
"Good fight," is all he grunts out as his body returns to it's previous human form, his mask and shorts unharmed by the battle.
Turning away from his opponent, Hookwolf raises a fist to the air, more out of habit from his old pit fighting days than anything else.
However, right as he does so, he hears something. The slight sound of sand crunching. So light that he wouldn't have noticed it if not for already being keyed up from the fight.
But all he has time to do is turn around before his vision turns white, pain like he has never known spreading up through his body, and he immediately bends forwards, his hands instinctively moving to cover his crotch.
He only manages to get a short glimpse of the grinning skull in front of him before her bony fist slams into his temple and all he knows is darkness.
Kitty, meanwhile, starts giggling to herself, the sound scratchy and haunting as her slowly regenerating larynx tries it's best to show her amusement.
Her regeneration may not be the fastest around, but her power can keep her alive with the best of them, and she will always heal back to full. Eventually, at least.
Looking down at the Nazi curled op on the ground unconscious, Kitty doesn't feel the slightest bit of empathy for kicking him in such a dishonourable place. Instead, she only feels sadistic glee at the pained expression he made.
The only thing that could make the day better is if Helena was here to... well... have 'fun' with.
Though, now that she thinks about it. Helena will probably have found out about her sneaking off to do this by now, and Helena is going to be pissed when she get's back.
She can't wait~.
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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
finally done with this chap!
There aren't gonna be any more fighting in these epilogues, I'm so freakin' tired with writing combat right now I stg. This chap kicked my ass.
I'm probably gonna end this on Epilogue 10, for the same reason I ended on chap 200, because my brain sees stuff like that and thinks "Hey, that's cool" :3
Also, I dislike censorship, but I was convinced that it'd be best to censor the n-word. (I still think that if you've managed to read this far, that you're prolly not the type to get upset at seeing a word being used in accurate context)
Also, Inkstone updated again, so if there are any formatting errors or if italics manage to fuck up again, let me know. For reference, This is italic, This is bold, This is both. lmk if they don't show as they should
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